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Friday, 15 February 2013

EU Investing €700 Million in 5G

1,000 times increase in wireless capacity will also benefit distribution of radio and television

The European Commission will invest €700 million in 5G research and development in a bid to improve the competitiveness of the region’s mobile communications industry. The plans form part of the Horizon 2020 program, which will see a total of €6.2 billion injected into eight Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in areas deemed to be of strategic importance to Europe. The goal of the 5G PPP will be to provide advances including a 1,000 times increase in wireless capacity serving more than seven billion people and the creation of a secure and dependable internet with “zero perceived downtime for services”.

Authorities believe that every €1 of public funding will trigger additional investments of between €3 and €10 to give European industry “a leading position on world markets”.

The ultimate benefits are to provide solutions to important societal challenges as identified in the Digital Agenda, for instance drastic energy reduction in network operations and optimized radio frequency usage, says the Commission.

By 2020 worldwide mobile traffic alone will reach a 33 times increase compared to 2010 figures. In this time Internet access will become dominated by wireless devices such as smartphones, tablets, machines and sensors, requiring more efficient and ubiquitous technology to carry the data traffic. Every sector of the economy is going digital. Every EU business and citizen needs to know they can enjoy easy-to-use, reliable and fast Internet on the move. This new wave of research projects promises to bring cutting-edge ultra-high-speed mobile broadband technology to the daily lives of Europeans.

Today there are 1.2 billion mobile broadband users, and the figure is growing by hundreds of millions each year. The European telecoms sector currently employs about 1.2 million people and accounts for 27% of the €17,000 billion global market.